The Monroe school board announced last night that the high school it plans to build may cost as much as $36 million more than the $82.9 million it has set aside for the project.
This, as they say, is not chump change. We’re talking about an increase since the approval of the referendum three years ago of nearly 50 percent, making it likely that the building will cost as much or more than the original 2002 plan nixed by voters.
The critics were quick to demand resignations, looking for any advantage they could find to kill the plan and prevent the landswap that underpins it. But this is not the school board’s fault — at least not entirely. The fiasco that has been brewing has been a community-wide effort.
Consider: If voters would have approved the original plan, the high school would be nearly finished and there would be no need for a land swap.
But voters — led by those in the senior communities — sent the plan to defeat, citing cost and location. So the board and the Township Council proposed the land swap, assuming it would be an easy sell to the state. That process, however, took longer than anyone anticipated and here we are.
The problem is that there is no easy solution. The board, in a misguided move, is considering other options. I can understand the urge, but this cuts against everything the board has said — that the savings from the landswap, along with the shared facilities, allowed them to build a high school at considerably less cost. But if they opt to buy a parcel somewhere else, the cost skyrockets — land in Monroe has grown expensive and we’d have to add back in the costs of a performing arts center, ball fields, etc.
So the board has essentially three options — go to the voters for more money, scale back the plans or a combination of both — none of which will make anyone very happy.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 